


Emissary of the Sleepless

by Mertiya



Series: Story Circle [12]
Category: Magic: The Gathering
Genre: Brain problems, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Nightmares, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-09-11
Updated: 2016-09-11
Packaged: 2018-08-14 13:07:03
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 631
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8015188
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Mertiya/pseuds/Mertiya
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Jace has nightmares.  The Gatewatch decide to do something.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Emissary of the Sleepless

Nissa notices the nightmares first, perhaps because her room is closest to Jace’s.  She can’t count the number of times she’s woken up to soft, desperate sounds from inside his rooms in the middle of the night.  She wakes him a couple of times, sits with him until he falls back asleep, but it makes her droopy and sleepy during the day, and Gideon notices.

He calls an emergency meeting of the Gatewatch, which actually means himself, Chandra, Nissa, and Lavinia.  (Gideon still doesn’t trust Liliana, and he’s seen some of the conversations she has with Jace, the mind mage’s voice laden with stress and panic and a desperate bitterness that he tries to hide.)  “Nissa,” he says patiently, “you can’t be the only one to help him deal with this.  This is a matter for all of us.”

Lavinia sets up schedules for each night of the week.  She’s already observed Jace’s sleeping habits, and she knows when the likely trouble days and trouble hours are.  It turns out he’s almost always all right on Thursdays, but Fridays are generally bad.  Wednesdays he has so much paperwork that he rarely sleeps at all, which might be why he sleeps so soundly on Thursdays.

Chandra makes a game out of it, creeping around his quarters in a manner that is far too obviously sneaky to be innocuous.  They discover, at the cost of a smashed glass and everyone being woken by the resultant screaming, that using fire to wake Jace up is not ideal.  Chandra starts using a wet rag instead.  (“Sorry,” Jace says evasively when asked, shifting his cloak uneasily on his shoulders.  “I had a run-in with a pyromancer once.  It wasn’t good.”)

Lavinia, to everyone’s surprise, is the best at waking him, saying his name crisply, but putting a light hand on his.  He always wakes up right away when she does, sighing sleepily, smiles in embarrassment and mutters, “Sorry,” before turning over to go back to sleep.

“STOP APOLOGIZING!” Chandra yells at Jace one afternoon, and he opens his mouth, forms, “Sor–” and stops in confusion.  Gideon laughs, one large hand hovering over Jace’s shoulder, and Jace tentatively stretches up, closing the distance between them.  “Thanks,” he mutters, staring at his matching blue shoes.

Nissa brings plants and fresh air, not touching him to waken him but somehow doing it anyway, brushing his hair and cheeks with vines.  At first he shies away, but he gets used to it eventually, until he can wake up, shake his head ruefully, and smile at her.

Three weeks after the Gatewatch starts tacitly looking out for him, Gideon wakes up at midnight to realize he hasn’t heard the usual desperate noises from Jace’s room.  Concerned, he heads over immediately, only to find the door slightly ajar.  He pushes the door open and peers inside, only to discover that Jace’s bed is overfull–Jace is curled into one corner, knees drawn up to his chest, and behind him, one arm sprawled across his chest, is a man in Izzet colors that Gideon thinks he should recognize, but doesn’t immediately.

The Izzet recently had quite a success, Gideon remembers; for the past month or so, almost none of the mages have been seen outside of Nivix, as the jealous eye of Niv has kept them all locked up and busy on some project Gideon knows nothing about, but has heard Jace complain about several times.  Now he knows why.

At the creak of the door, Ral Zarek looks up and scowls, putting a finger to his lips.  Gideon just nods and smiles and closes the door.

One more person looking out for Jace is definitely okay in his book.  He makes a note to get Lavinia to add Ral to the schedule.


End file.
